Gymnasts and Low Carb

[Gittit Shwartz]

From NBC Sports:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/5317716/

G

[Gregor]

Stupidity!

You need carbs for normal working body and for BEST regeneration. In That case what? your body will produce a glucose from protein for energy and for brain food (40g of glucose per day).

And lower energy during the training and worse regeneration after the training.

Did he forgot about timming? Of course: after training you can take two PWM meals with fast carbs (50 grams each) like glucose 45 minutes apart, and nothing will go to fat, your body is in that time like a sponge and will drink it all.

One more thing all diets are katabolic, if you have deficit you don't have comletly food for 100% regeneration.

[George Launchbury]

I only had time to skin read the article, but it did seem to have an undertone of low-carb high-protein about it, where really optimum human nutrition should be about low-carb, adequate protein and the rest of your caloric neds met by fats.

People DO NOT need carbs on a regular basis. We are human, and humans evolved to eat a specific way over millions of years. It did not include a significant amount of carbohydrate. Excess carbohydrate in any form will ultimately lead to bad health. It really is a little like banging one's head against a wall. Someone once said that it takes a lot more than facts and science to change a belief, and that is proving to be very much the case with the "accepted thinking" on nutrition - sports or otherwise.

Maybe it's possible to buck the system and eek out a little more performance, or enable yourself to train a little more regularly ...but you are damaging yourself in the long term. It's fine if people choose to do this with their eyes open, but to label things as stupidity when people are not prepared to risk their health for maximum possible performance is not overly responsible.

Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant - I just find it hard to grasp that people who seem to be so well educated are failing to get up to speed with recent information. Come on people, move with the times!

George.

[Gregor]

Of course carbs are not esential for life, beacuse body can produce from proteins, but is that best diet?

I didn't talk about problems with regular people, who consume to much of everything.

You must understand that carbs are not evil, and smart consuming will enhance your abillty. And low carb diet all season is not smart, especialy in competition time. So worse regeneration, drop of strenght....

When I said smart consuming you can add all carbs in trainings time.

PS: full glycogen->better anabolizem

full liver glycogen-> better anabolizem

So all season high protein-low carb diet is not god!

[Gregor]

Now I've read the whole article.

Yes it's a problem with kids who eats in mc'donalds and taco, and no meat, no proper food....

But I was just talking about the whole season low carb diet (with almost zero carb), I dissagree with it. That don't mean you eat in fast food chain resturants or in any kind of resturants, you can easly prepair food and cook it in home.

PS: 2-3g per body weight of protein, the rest is fat and carbs...

[Blairbob]

I do the see the point that when it comes to competition, gymnasts don't burn through a lot of energy because of the length of the routines, even if you include warm-ups and event warm-ups it isn't a lot of total time besides sitting or standing.

However, as per workouts, gymnasts do need to keep energy levels high because 3-5 hours of working out has it's energy demands even if it's anaerobic mostly. I do think with proper eating before and after workout besides snacking when we don't need to go crazy with the carbs besides including regular meals ( which are a part of the recovery process ).

Even low carb diets are not without carbs. The Zone and Paleo diet still contain carbs, just not from pastas and breads preferably with steps toward going gluten-free. Plenty of carbs from fruit and veggies, and a lot of the energy comes from good fats. 7 grams of protein for every 9 grams of carbs and 4 grams of fat is the ratio. Even if that's low carb compared to the American food pyramid, that's still a fair amount of carb, though it is half what is currently reccomended in the US Food pyramid ( not sure if what's in Europe or Japan is the same ).

2-3g/protein per pound is very difficult to ingest IMO. It's more about just getting it in besides even the cost of it.

Some of the paleo mindset is that eating throughout the year in the Paleo period would have been seasonal. When fruit was in season, a lot of ingestion of calories from fruit=carbs. During the winter, a lot from protein and fat.

[Gregor]

No, it's not that hard to ingest if you have supplements, but yes, it costs.

In Europe or excatly in slovenia we have quite diffrent conduct of food intake. It's not habbit to eat to much of carbs here, so I think here we are going apart what we think about how many carbs...And we don't have weight problems (of course we have, but not in the meaning that nation have a problem->to much fat people).

But American food pyramid it's verry good! it's only a problem to hold that diet wich is considired on a pyramid.